FAQ

Curvature has sold pre-owned equipment to more than 15,000 organizations, spanning Fortune 500 companies, small- and mid-sized businesses, telecommunications service providers, financial institutions, government entities, educational institutions and healthcare organizations. Worldwide, Curvature’s largest vertical segments are telecommunications and technology integrators. In carrier networks where uptime is essential, deployments of equipment are most often used in production environments. A majority of enterprises use the equipment to support front-line service and network expansions, but many organizations buy from Curvature for sparing, testing and disaster recovery applications. Moreover, in a recent study of 400 Curvature customers, the research found that nearly 80 percent of purchases were intended for production network use. Additionally, 66 percent of those surveyed implemented equipment for network expansion projects.

All equipment sold by Curvature is considered “pre-owned,” meaning the equipment was initially sold by the manufacturer or an authorized reseller and is now being resold by us. Some of the inventory is “used,” and some equipment has been resold without being used at all. For any products labeled “used,” Curvature provides a full inspection, cleaning, testing and reconditioning to return the equipment to as close to its original condition as possible. In cases where only minor repairs or cosmetic improvements are needed, equipment is labeled as “refurbished.” Our goal is to return equipment to “like new” condition whenever possible while still offering exceptional savings of between 50 and 90 percent off manufacturers’ list prices.

“New-surplus” equipment has never been used and may also be described to reflect the condition of its packaging. Equipment that is “new/open box” may range in condition from mint to two or more years old, already resold multiple times but has never been used. “New/in box” typically denotes the product is from the manufacturer’s distribution channel with its original tape unopened. In either of these cases, Curvature opens the boxes to verify the contents and ensure equipment meets specifications. Since Curvature does not sell any new products, both of these instances are considered “pre-owned” according to our standards.

Nearly all servers, storage and networking equipment, can be found for sale on the secondary market. Our inventory is typically market driven, so we’re aggressively pursuing the top 100-to-200 products to provide customers with the most popular equipment in 24-to-48 hours. With Curvature contacts and resources in many different verticals, we are typically able to deliver even specialized or hard-to-find items within five to seven days.

Curvature leads the secondary market industry with more than $40 million in inventory. Curvature’s stock is responsive to its customers. That’s why we always try to have a wide range of equipment available. We maintain a database of more than 2,000 resources globally paired with state-of-the-art databases for tracking all of our inventory worldwide. As a result, Curvature typically has the most popular and hard-to-find networking items in stock and ready to ship when you need them.

Most of our inventory is stocked by many of our own customers. For instance, when a company upgrades their environment, cancels a project or closes a location, Curvature is there to buy surplus equipment or provide trade-in credit toward a future purchase. We’re also available to source equipment from system integrators who may purchase gear for clients only to see the project get canceled or changed. The rest of our inventory is acquired from equipment resellers.

Curvature understands that networks are mission critical for any business, and our warranty is designed with uptime and agility in mind. Curvature offers a true lifetime warranty on all pre-owned manufacturer-branded equipment and all new Curvature-branded equipment. For as long as you own the equipment, if you experience equipment failure, our technical engineering support teams will do everything they can to remedy the problem. Whether we can solve it over the phone or need to send a replacement piece your way for next-business-day delivery, our team will keep latency and downtime to a minimum.

Curvature is recognized as a top global performer for independent support for network, server and storage equipment across the entire IT infrastructure. We provide consistent results while retaining the agility to meet the ever-changing customer needs. We’re continually striving to enable IT freedom for our customers. By removing pain points and identifying areas to improve both quality and efficiency throughout our relationship, we’re here to support you.

Network Maintenance – We provide 24/7 support of router, switch, and wireless networking devises including parts, labor and remote technical support to meet ongoing IT needs.

Server Maintenance – Our server maintenance solutions span from complex, legacy servers down to industry servers (x86) with options for call-home monitoring and software support. Our delivery is over 95% direct – globally – with less than 5% of shipments requiring partner assistance.

Storage Maintenance – Our storage maintenance provides comprehensive break/fix support, spanning most hardware platforms from the leading manufacturers like Dell EMC, NetApp, Hitachi, IBM and HPE. We offer consistent results while retaining agility to meet the ever-changing needs of our customers. Curvature storage maintenance also includes call-home monitoring and optional software support.

The key benefits of “pre-owned” products from Curvature are substantial savings and expedited delivery. In a time when manufacturers can take 10 to 80 days to fulfill orders, Curvature can achieve same day shipping on most in-stock products because of its multi-million dollar inventory of popular, specialized and hard-to-find products. Additionally, companies buying pre-owned equipment from us can save as much as 75 percent off manufacturers’ list prices.

There is counterfeit equipment in the market, particularly with dominant brands like Cisco, but Curvature has seen counterfeiting decrease in recent years. Today, the most commonly counterfeited items are lower-value modules like PIX cards and GBICs. In the effort to eradicate counterfeit equipment, Curvature has a Counterfeit Abatement Program (CAP). CAP includes a strict methodology for identifying suspect equipment, quarantining it for detailed inspection, documenting evolving counterfeiting techniques and maintaining a comprehensive knowledgebase by Curvature quality technicians. Our technicians are globally ensuring that products are authentic and meet factory specifications.

To help fight this battle industry-wide, Curvature is a founding member of UNEDA (the Used Networking Equipment Dealer Association). Part of this method’s charter is to help ensure that counterfeit detection practices are shared among all the 300+ members. Awareness among resellers and customers is the best way to fight counterfeiters, and we’re continually striving to eradicate counterfeit products. We are also a Certified C-TPAT Importer (Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism). Led by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, C-TPAT is focused on improving global supply chain security with respect to terrorism

A lifetime product warranty may seem like a solution to eliminate the need for a maintenance and support contract, and in some cases, this may be true. However, warranty, maintenance and support contracts are different and provide varying levels of support.

A Curvature maintenance contract – one contract for all your needs – goes well beyond a standard warranty. When IT professionals talk about service contracts, a significant part of that discussion involves product replacement timeframes. Curvature offers varying levels of advanced hardware replacement timeframes including next-business-day, 4-hour and onsite spare. These options are all available 24/7 while the standard warranty is limited to 8/5. So, if you have critical network infrastructure that requires fast hardware replacement, regardless of time or day of the week, Curvature maintenance support is a must-have component for your IT strategy.

The technical support available to our maintenance customers is also superior to our standard warranty support. Curvature technical support is available 24/7, with a 30-minute response guaranteed and includes troubleshooting and configuration support. Our standard warranty support is 8×5 and is limited to verification of hardware failure and authorization of an RMA. Of course, if in the process of verifying that the hardware has failed our network engineers find that the cause of the issue is not hardware failure, they will provide that information to the customer and help them to resolve the issue.

The quick response you get with our maintenance program can dramatically speed up the time required to remedy a network problem, whether due to a failed device or a configuration issue. This can mean significant savings in both time and money for your business. Limit your downtime with unbeatable support.

For Curvature to appropriately stock all of the hardware our customers have under their maintenance and support contracts, we need to know exactly what you have in each chassis or router. This serves as a cost advantage for you. Instead of charging a flat price for the chassis, like Cisco does with SMARTnet, we can lower our price according to precisely what you have in each chassis. It also means that the parts you need are available when you need them.